Snowmageddon II, aesthetically speaking

It has been a while since I've posted here. I actually have several shoots to account for, but today, I'm simply going to take the easiest -- which also happens to be the most current. Plus, it's yet another I accomplished with the handy iPhone I've been exploiting in most of the recent posts here.

The Midwest has been slammed this winter with an inordinately heavy volume of snow, and Central Indiana has been no exception. After each of the two most severe snowstorms, temperatures took a nose dive into the single digits and subzero realm. And that made it difficult to get out and photograph the beauty of snow, even though most of us have pretty much lost interest in the weather's aesthetics right about now.

This afternoon, two days after Snowmageddon II, I decided to walk six blocks or so to my bank branch, and on the return trip, went through Garfield Park, where the bulk of these images were taken. I didn't set out to photograph when I started my journey; but the spirit moved me once I hit the park. Parks tend to do that to me; perhaps, if you're a photographer, you know what I mean.

All of the images you see here were taken with an iPhone then pulled up on the computer at home for post-processing. Most of them needed a fair amount of shadow boosting and a slight increase in saturation; a few required cropping.

I don't know that there were any that stood out to warrant the lead-off position above; I chose the one I did because it included a vehicle that had just driven past me ... and a runner on the right side of the road. The last four pictures below are of the neighborhood south of the park.

Above and below: I present these because there used to be a tree in a radically diagonal growth pattern in the middle of the area of the center of the above picture, one that I included a year ago or so in a collection of trees in the park I referred to as "tilted." It's not there anymore. But in the nearby Bean Creek, I spied a very tall, angular tree (below), which looks very much like the tree that used to be in the above meadow. Another of the park's tilted trees appears in the image second below. 

Above and below: Two views, from just slightly different perspectives, of the park amphitheater, the MacAllister Center.

Above and below: Two views, again from slightly different perspectives, of the arts center. 

Above and below: Another pair of "two view" -- this time, of Conservatory Drive, looking east toward where one would turn into the conservatory itself. 

Above: Pagoda Drive looking east, from its junction with the Southern Avenue access. 

Above: Looking north from near the pedestrian roundabout at the south end of the park.

Above: Again looking north from a point south of the one immediately above, this time to include the monument that welcomes vehicle traffic entering the park from Southern Avenue.

Above: Homeowners along Southern Avenue must often look out at the park from their front windows. This image attempts to give homeowners an idea what the park might see if it looked across the street at them. 

GSC completes its run of The Tempest

Twice a year -- once in spring, the other in fall -- the all-volunteer Garfield Shakespeare Company theater troupe presents two free plays in Garfield Park in Indianapolis. This past weekend, the curtain came down on the 2013 fall production, The Tempest, which the bard wrote five or so years before his death in 1616. It is believed to be the last play Shakespeare wrote entirely on his own. Early critics viewed the play's lead character, Prospero, as a representation of the bard himself, and that the feelings Prospero expresses in the profound closing soliloquy reflected those of Shakespeare himself ... and perhaps even served as his "retirement" speech.

Three of the four dates scheduled for GSO's production this fall were blessed with beautiful weather, a key factor every year in that the autumn shows are presented in the park's amphitheater (the spring shows are performed indoors at the nearby arts center). The Saturday show of the second weekend of The Tempest, unfortunately, was rained out, and the troupe learned that it would not be able to use the scheduled rain dates -- which had been set for this weekend -- because of unforeseen conflicts involving some of the cast members.

I've photographed each of the troupe's productions since fall 2010, and early this year I increased my involvement with the organization when I accepted an invitation to join its board of directors (I would have been perfectly content continuing in a photography-only role, but the organization needed people interested in the group to serve on the board, so I hopped aboard).

I attribute my interest in photographing GSC productions to the fact that the troupe's artistic director, Joe Cook, allows me to do anything and go anywhere I please to get my pictures. This flexibility maximizes my shot selection and, I feel, boosts the pictures' quality. Regular cast members have become accustomed to this; many have told me how much they appreciate the results.

For this year's dress rehearsal on Sept. 25, two days before opening night, I used a familiar gear system to start with -- two cameras, my Canon 7D equipped with the 24-70mm f/2.8L lens, and the backup Canon 30D equipped with the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens. Unfortunately, the cast wasn't able to get the production under way until it was past 7 p.m., so I had a limited amount of natural light to work with. This was key -- at least for the 30D, whose low-light sensitivity is inferior to that of the newer, technologically superior 7D. After a certain point, when I was pushing the ISO on the 7D to 2000 (and, later, beyond), I put the 30D down for good and shot exclusively with the 7D, positioning myself closer and closer to the performers than I would have if I'd had the opportunity to occasionally turn to the 70-200mm lens quickly.

I'd considered putting a flash equipped with a diffuser on the 7D, but doing that would have dragged my burst, not to mention introduce frustrating, multiple flash recycling lulls (and even more so with the twice-as-slow-burst 30D), so I decided to stick exclusively with the 7D and available light, and to run the high-ISO images through a noise-reduction software in post-processing.

What you see in this post is a result of that night's shoot at the amphitheater, the MacAllister Center for the Performing Arts. The photo leading off the post features two of most prominent characters in the play Prospero (right), played by Eduardo Torres, and the island spirit Ariel, played by GSC veteran J.D. Bonitz. Torres joined the cast just three weeks before opening night when the original Prospero left the cast. A full gallery of images from the shoot can be found at my site at SmugMug.

Above and next three below: The opening scene of The Tempest finds Queen Alonsa and her entourage at sea and caught in a tempest conjured by Prospero, the rightful duke of Milan, exiled along with his daughter Miranda to an island by his conspiratorial brother Antonio. While on the island, Prospero learns sorcerer skills and derives much of his powers from Ariel. He draws from those skills to conjure the storm to bring Antonio and the complicit queen and her entourage to the island. Quite a few theater companies skip the opening scene because of the difficulty in depicting a ship being battered about by tempestuous winds. The Garfield Shakespeare Company accepted the challenge, using rocking and swaying island spirit Ariel (foreground, in white), standing in front of the stage swaying a model ship to mimic the storm-battered vessel. Also used in the depiction were some blue fabric cloths (resembling sea waves) tugged up and down on either ends by two other island spirits to help the audience visualize the storm. 

Above: GSC artistic director Joe Cook handed over directing chores to assistant director Chris Burton two weeks before opening night so Cook could join the cast as Gonzalo, a kind courtier in the queen's court. The move was necessitated by yet another cast withdrawal.

Above: The ship's boatswain, Nicolas Roberts, barking out orders while trying to keep the ship afloat during the opening scene. 

Above: Two members of the queen's court, Trincula (left, played by Heather Bartram) and butler Stefano, played by Jay Brubaker, battle the sails as the ship tips heavily after being slammed by a wave.

Above and below: Photos of Torres (as Prospero) and Stefanie Maier, as Prospero's daughter, Miranda, as taken with the 30D and 70-200mm lens with some of the last good natural light of the evening.

Above: Maier (as Miranda) during a monologue early in the play.

Above and below: Also key in the plot is Caliban, an island beast -- referred to by the characters as "monster" -- who like Ariel also is under the control of Prospero and also seeks his freedom. Mike Merrick did a splendid job cast as Caliban.

Above and next two below: As a spirit, Ariel (Bonitz) cannot be seen by anyone in the queen's entourage, so he is able to toy unscathed with the queen's son Ferdinand (played by Peter Catlin), who is baffled about why he cannot move his sword (first below).  

Above: Gonzalo (Cook) with the queen (Mary Dando) and Adrianna (Jean Long), the queen's lady. 

Above: Sam Brandys (left) and Monica Verdouw, both playing island spirits, gave the production's music a stamp of credibility with their live flute playing. 

Above: Antonio, the usurping brother of Prospero played by Sam Fogleman, and Sebastian, the queen's brother played by Carey Shea.

Above: Trincula, no longer hiding under Caliban's gaberdine, investigates as Stefano (Brubaker) forces Caliban to swallow some wine. 

Above and below: Stefano listening to Caliban's passionate petition to conspire against Prospero (above) and getting physical with Trincula (below) to silence her offensive tongue, even though the offending remarks aren't coming from her, but from the unseen spirit Ariel.

Above and below: Ariel dons the appearance of a harpy, becoming visible to address and dress down the queen's entourage, claiming three men at the dining table are of sin. 

Above and below: The marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand, presided over by Juno (Monica Verdouw). 

Above: The post nuptials celebration, when the newly wedded couple and Juno are joined by island spirits played by (from left) Zoe Pierce, Sam Brandys, Nicolas Roberts and Elizabeth Fasbender.

Above: Trincula and Stefano use the garments to have a little fun playing keep-away from Caliban.

Above: Ariel puts an end to the garments frivolity by chasing away Stefano and Caliban.

Above: Gonzalo (Cook) with some words of wisdom near the end of the play.

Above and below: The full cast huddle to discuss tweaks and the like, led by director Chris Burton (below).

Shakespeare troupe tackles Tempest

With the fall production of the all-volunteer Garfield Shakespeare Company's The Tempest scheduled to open Sept. 27, I spent the past week or so shooting two practice sessions to garner pictures to promote the show online and in as many media that will have it.

The first shoot was an informal practice; most cast members were still rehearsing with the aid of the manuscript. No sooner had I completed the editing of those pictures -- and was preparing to post a couple dozen or so on Facebook -- when GSC artistic director Joe Cook scheduled a practice at which cast members would wear costumes for formal publicity photos.

When we did the publicity photo session for last year's show, A Midsummer Night's Dream, costumes for only a few cast members were ready. The pictures turned out wonderful, but only a few actors were featured. However, the shots were taken early enough in the evening to benefit from good natural lighting. For various reasons, this year's publicity photo session was scheduled later, which probably had a lot to do with why costumes were ready for just about everybody.

Unfortunately, we didn't get into the back area of the amphitheater (where performers could change into costumes) at Garfield Park until well past 7 p.m., and performers weren't ready to take the stage until almost 7:30. We lost valuable time at a point in the year when daylight gets shorter and shorter each day. If we'd started at 6:30 p.m. or thereabouts when practice was supposed begin, I'd have had some very nice ambient light to work with ... and wouldn't have been presented with the lighting dilemma that I ended up having.

My first thought was to use flash, powering down so that the intensity would be enough to provide nice highlight to faces. I slipped a Wescott Micro Apollo light modifier over the flash head to diminish any chance of harshness with the light. At 7:33 p.m., when we were about 10 minutes or so from starting, I tested the intensity settings on the flash (minus 1 1/3) on Mary Dando (right), who is playing Alonsa, queen of Naples. I had the camera set at shutter priority (1/160) and ISO at 200, and the settings rendered me f/2.8 on the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens I was using on my Canon 7D. The shot looked splendid. Note the ambient light -- still a bit left; that would turn out to make a difference between this shot and the ones I'd be getting in only 10 minutes time.

By the time we got the real show on the road, it had turned much darker, and those settings were giving me harsh face lighting -- and even shadows on the black backgrounds. I'd obviously overlooked the fact that the shot of Mary had the stray light going harmlessly into the atmosphere; on stage, that light was giving me shadow fits. I tinkered with the flash intensity several times, and I was getting either shadows and white facial features ... or not enough light at all. I was so irked, I didn't save any of those photos, not thinking they might be something I could use in this post. I chucked the flash and decided to shoot at a high ISO in available light. It was nearly 8 p.m., and I upped the ISO to 320, leaving the other settings alone. I got some good shots for a short while, but I had to keep boosting the ISO periodically ... I finished at 3200. The crew eventually turned on the built-in lights on the stage, but those were relatively weak ... so certainly better than none at all.

Actually, I've shot with available light at this facility before in the dark -- on nights when this troupe has done live performances. But the live shows usually have a bit more lighting, enough so that the 7D can use slightly less ISO -- maybe 2500. The 30D I was use for my backup or secondary camera, however, is in trouble in those situations. I can push it ISO 3200, but the 30D's noise is unacceptable (to me, anyway) at 1600 already, whereas the 7D usually does well through 2500 and, on occasion, even at 3200. I ran all of the photos through Noiseware noise-reduction software in post-processing, including the one leading off today's post, a shot from the wedding of the characters Miranda and Ferdinand, played by Stefanie Maier and Peter Catlin.

GSC is daring to stage the Shakespeare play's opening scene, a violent storm at sea and shipwreck -- something many producers skip over because of the complications of staging such a scenario (rocking boat, huge waves slamming into the boat, etc.). The Act 1, Scene 1 storm scene lead off the photos below.

The Tempest opens at 8 p.m. Sept. 27; there are additional performances at the same time on Sept. 28 and Oct. 4-5, with rain dates set for Oct. 11-12. Admission is free.

Above and next several below: GSC is counting on the audience to help visualize the setup above as the deck of a boat being rocked back and forth in a violent storm at sea. Cast member J.D. Bonitz, in his costume of the spirit Ariel (in white below), will assist audience members with the visualization. For this photograph, he stood at stage right so I could get him into the picture with the other cast members. For the live shows, however, he will be standing in front of the stage -- level with the audience -- and holding this model ship and rocking it back and forth (as well as gyrating himself) as if the ship would sway during a real storm.

The characters of Stephano (above left, played by Jay Brubaker), a drunken butler; Caliban (above right, played by Mike Merrick), a villainous island native and deformed island slave; the mischievous spirit Ariel (first below, played by J.D. Bonitz) who does Prospero's bidding; and jester Trinculo (the woman in orange, played by Heather Bartram) are featured in these next several photos.

Above and below: GSC was happy to welcome Eduardo Torres, who stepped in only last weekend to fill the important role of Prospero, the right duke of Milan, when the performer originally cast for the part had to drop out of the show.

The wedding ceremony (above) for Miranda (Stefanie Maier) and Fernando (Peter Catlin), officiated by the spirit Juno (Monica Verdouw), and an alternate post-ceremony celebration photo, where the three characters above are joined by spirits played by (from left) Sam Brandys, Elizabeth Fasbender and Nicolas Roberts. 

Above: Sebastian (played by Corey Shea), treacherous brother of Queen Alonsa, and Antonio (Sam Fogleman), Prospero's brother.

Adriana (left, played by Jean Long) and Queen Alonsa (Mary Dando).

Above and below: Monochrome and original color versions of a face-to-face encounter between siblings Alonsa, queen of Naples (Mary Dando) and her treacherous brother Sebastian (Corey Shea). I slipped to the back side of the stage and looked out toward the seats for this shot. Lighting was unusually challenging, rendering one of the noisiest images of the shoot.

Above: Ariel (Bonitz) along with flutists Sam Brandys (left) and Monica Verdouw.  

Above:  A depth of field composition, featuring a slumbering Queen Alonsa (Mary Dando) and her lady, Adriana (Jean Long). Mary prolonged the posed to indulge my setup of this one, one of the few times I leaned on the performers to step out of script for the benefit of photographs.  

Above: Two images from a sequence of Bonitz adding a beak, a black top and wings to his spirit costume, a stunning creation of GSC's associated artistic director and longtime costumer Bradley A. Jones.